Tuesday, March 14, 2006

"B" 's Testimony

I grew up in a family that was indifferent about religion, not irreligious but not too religious. My family is Sunni not Shiee (Shiite). All of my family members are teachers. Because of that, growing up, I was only concerned with lessons and being a good student. In our city, in the Kurdish part of Iran, it was traditional in the summer to have a Koran class for all the young children taught by a mullah. I attended this class every summer for seven years. I have read the whole Koran three times through in these classes. I have also read the two books that one has to read to become a mullah in the Sunni branch of Islam.



Until I graduated from high school, I didn't have any problems, but after I passed my final examinations, I thought my God was far away from me, that He was high up in the sky, we were down on the earth, and there was no way to really talk to Him. There were some things that were sin in my life, but I couldn't stop doing them, I couldn't stop being a sinner. That really hurt my faith. When I passed the entrance exam to university, I went to Tehran. From that time my bad life began. I was hopeless and nothing bothered me, no matter what I did. I enjoyed being a sinner. The sin was one of the habits in my normal life. The only thing I didn't think about was God. I had emotional problems. I couldn't sleep at all. I would go to sleep late at night and rise early in the morning. I wasn't getting enough sleep. I think now that this was because my sin was bothering my conscience, but I didn't think about that then.



I studied in Tehran for four years, the last two of which I was a member of an opposition political group. Because of that, the university kicked me out and didn't give me a degree. I stayed in Iran for nine more months, and then I decided to leave the country, since I wasn't allowed to do anything because of my political affiliation... I couldn't work or study or do anything. I wasn't in prison but it was like a prison.



When I left Iran, my plan was to go to Bulgaria and then to England. Everything was set. I wasn't supposed to come to Greece. I stayed in Bulgaria for four months and had been accepted to be given a Bulgarian passport. But before I was issued one, September 11 happened, and the law was changed. I wasn't allowed to have one, so I had to leave. I decided to come to Greece with three other Iranians.



The first couple of weeks in Athens, we slept in the park and found out about a place the other refugees called "The American Church" (Helping Hands), where we could come to eat. Later we decided to help. I started to read a Bible I got there because it was the only Farsi book I had. I was reading it like a newspaper, not caring about it at all because of my religion. I talked to Nader privately and attended the Seekers' Class, Persian Christian Fellowship, and a local church, that my friends had begun attending because they were interested in Christianity, just to fill my free time because I didn't have anything else to do. When I would think about Christianity logically in my mind, I could accept it, but I still couldn't accept it in my heart.



My friends and I went to Argos in southern Greece to work, picking oranges. There I met a friend from Bulgaria who spoke Turkish. He had been Muslim but he had converted to Christianity. We would work together picking oranges, eat together, spend all of our time together. Every day and night during our free time he read the Bible out loud. Before each meal he prayed for us. His good attitude impacted me. One day he came to me and said, "Tomorrow is Sunday. We haven't been to church in a long time. We should go together." So we returned to Athens to take him to the church we had been attending. In church he prayed for us, crying as he prayed. When the work season was finished, he left for Bulgaria. But before he left, said to me, "Open your heart to Jesus. I will pray for you every day."



The opportunity arose to go to Italy, so I left Athens and went to an island to board a boat. Everything was set, everyone was ready to go, but something didn't let me go, something wasn't right. When I returned to Athens, I had no money left, and I was lost completely. It was the hardest time in my life. At that time I asked Jesus, "If You're real, touch me." On a Thursday, I went to an Iranian fellowship at the church my friends attended. I was not ready. I entered the church to find the congregation singing and worshiping God. I suddenly felt another feeling in my heart, like it had completely changed. I felt different. All the words they sang were like a wooden board hitting me in the head, reminding of my childhood. It was like a cinema, seeing all the things that had happened in my life. I was weeping, and I couldn't stand up straight, and I knelt to the floor. Afterward, I went back home... not really a house, just a ruined building where we were staying. We slept on the concrete floor, and it was very hard, and we each had only one sleeping bag. And yet that night was the first time I could sleep through the night in years.



Ten days after that day, I was baptized, earlier than my three friends! I didn't have emotional problems anymore. Instead, I had peace in my heart. Sin was slowly exiting my life as I lost the desire to sin. The best thing is that I can talk with my God directly. My God is not far away in the sky anymore. I know that my God has a wonderful plan for my life here on earth. Now I have the opportunity to leave Greece and live with some relatives in another country, but I know that God is calling me to work in Greece and be here. So I will not go anywhere until He will let me go. I can feel that He is trying to teach me each day through His Word. I am very grateful for His plan, and I will obey Him, step by step. I confess that He is the only one who can give us peace, and that He is the only Savior.

"L" 's story

I am from Iran. My father is seventy years old and has had three wives. I have so many siblings that I have to stop and count them on my fingers: six brothers, seven sisters. All of my brothers are in the army (and they are afraid they will lose their jobs because I left Iran). But my mind needs to be free. I'm not like them. I have a free spirit.


I could say that I had the feeling that I had lost something and had to go find it, but the real reason I left Iran was the matter of finding a job. When I first left home, I didn't tell my parents, just my sisters that I was going on a trip. I didn't even know where I was going. I spent a year going from one city in Iran to another. In each place I had a feeling that what I wanted (I didn't know what) wasn't there.

Life after leaving my parents was very difficult, even though I found work each place I went. I decided to apply for a passport, and when I got it, I went to Turkey, where I stayed for three years, trying to get to Greece from the first day I arrived. Three years later, the Turkish government deported me to Iran. It was a horrible situation, which lasted for the nine months it took for me to get a new passport to return to Turkey. As soon as I got it, I went to Istanbul.

I tried once more to get to Greece. I told God I would do Vuzu until I could get in. To do Vuzu, I would take my hand, put it in some water, then stretch out my hand so that my thumb was on one side of my face and my middle finger was on the other, pulling my hand over my face to wash it. It was important to get every centimeter of my face wet; otherwise I would have to do it again. I would dip my hand back into the water, cupping it to hold some, and pour it on my left arm, dragging the water down to my fingers, then repeating the process on my right arm.

Then I would put my hand at the back of the top of my head and drag it in a straight line almost to my forehead. Next I stroked each toe, from the tip to where it reached my foot, with my wet hand. Good Muslims do this five times a day before prayer. I would do this after each time I went to the bathroom, remaining in a constant state of ritual cleanliness.

I did Vuzu for a month. It was Christmas 2001, and I was in a square in Turkey where a Christmas program was taking place. When the program finished, I saw a black man giving out a book to everybody. I was curious, so I went over to him to see what he was doing. "What is this?" I asked, as I took one of the books. He said, "It is the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ." I didn't believe Christianity, but I knew that the Bible is a holy book written by the prophets. So I just kissed the book and left it on the street for someone else to take, since I can't read Turkish.

Soon it was time to leave. Four of my friends and I bought a plastic rowboat. We planned to paddle from Izmir to the closest Greek island. I called my mom, the first time I had talked to her since I had left. She hadn't been happy with me, but I asked her to pray for me, since I didn't know if I'd ever see her again. I might die. We blew up the boat, then realized none of us could swim! I believed that I wasn't really risking my life, that I would survive. I knew that the God who created the sea could save me too. I had this confidence as I paddled.

We moved fast. After five hours, we arrived at Híos without any problems. But the police arrested us and held us for two days. Then they gave us red cards (indicating we were applying for political asylum), forty euros each, and told us to buy ferry tickets to Athens. It was so easy. On previous attempts, I had spent five days walking from Turkey to Greece. This time it only took five hours of traveling and two days in jail.

I didn't know anyone in Athens or anywhere to go, but I knew that Iranians gathered in the Omonia area. The next day, some Iranians I met told me to come to Helping Hands. The first time I came was on a Friday for Shower Ministry. I was dirty from sleeping in the park. An Iranian named Nader was giving people showers and told me I was very lucky because a lot of people hadn't shown up that day. I got to shower even though I didn't have a ticket.

I came back the next day for food and loved watching the Jesus film. One day, I looked up to see Nader staring at me. He told me, "I know that one day you will believe in Jesus." But I thought, That's silly. That's impossible. How could that happen? It took Jesus beating me up to believe in Him, like Paul, blinded.

Ever since I arrived in Athens, I kept experiencing something new, something that had never happened to me in my life. I would think, I want to see... so-and-so, and a minute later that exact person would suddenly be in front of me. It would happen all the time. I wouldn't even ask God, but He kept providing for me.

For instance, one time my computer teacher Joanna had lent me a CD for learning English, making me promise to return it the next Saturday. On that day I thought Helping Hands was closed, and I was sad when I realized that night that I still had the CD and didn't know how to give it back to her. Right at that moment, she appeared, telling me I could keep the CD for another week. [Joanna: I had taken a different way home that night and bumped into Morteza right as I was about to go down to the metro.]

Also, I had a problem finding a place to stay, but I found an empty house, and it was open, so I went in. I stayed there for two weeks, coming to Helping Hands every time it was open and going to a local church on Sundays. I went to church because I wanted to know what they were talking about and to have more information, not as a believer but a seeker. The first sentence I heard that impacted me was "He is the God of love." When I heard this, I started to cry.

Two weeks after I moved into the empty house, two men, an Arab and an Albanian, came and told me that it was their house, but they let me stay there. They were not normal people; I just knew that they were doing illegal things, but I didn't have any choice; I had to live with them. I thought that maybe God had put me there to bring the Albanian to church, so I invited him to come with me several times, even though I wasn't a believer myself!

I kept a Koran with me the whole time. Whenever my Iranian friends asked me if I had become a Christian, I would pull out my Koran and say, "Would I carry this if I were a Christian? The only reason I go to church is to know what Christians believe."

It was very difficult to know which one was true and demanded belief, Christianity or Islam. I was twenty-six years old, had grown up in Islam all my life. I had even done Vuzu for an entire month. How could I give up everything, as if it were all a game, and say Christ was the way? But in my heart I knew this was true. God was trying to show me His way by all these miracles happening in my life. But I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't accept Christianity. I said to myself, I have to know all the facts, I can't simply believe. I'm the kind of person that can't accept something right away; I have to search for the truth for a long time.

One day I went to church during a prayer time and prayed, "God, I'm tired, very tired. If You are real, reveal Yourself to me. I want to know You and to know Your truth." That night I couldn't sleep. I prayed all night. I told God, "I only want to see Your truth. Open my eyes."

The next day, my friends cleaned the house. The Arab came and asked me, "Don't you have a Koran?" I handed it to him, and he read some passages out of it. Then he asked, "Do you know which direction Mecca is in?"

I answered, "I don't know, but pray in four directions, and one of them will be right." So he did. It was strange to me because I thought that my Arab friend didn't believe in God. I soon found

out that it was all a scam. He had stolen the Albanian's CD player and was planning to blame it on me.

That night the Albanian invited me into his room. He asked me where his CD player was. When I told him I didn't know, he punched me three times, in both eyes and in the nose. My clothes were covered in blood. I told him, "I didn't do it!" but he didn't believe me. Finally, I was able to escape from the house.

I never went back to the house, just staying out on the street all night before going to work the next morning. While I was working, I asked God, "You wanted me to bring them to Your church. What's going on? Why did this happen?" But God was using THEM to bring ME to Him.

I realized I had left one of my possessions in the house when I left for good, but instead of feeling sad, I felt free; it was my copy of the Koran. The Arab had brought Islam into the house, then stole the CD player and brought about all of these bad events. How could that be right? But Christians did good things. I thought that, to believe in Jesus, He should just appear and say, "Hi, I'm Jesus." But then I discovered that the reality was inside me. He was changing me from the inside, not appearing on the outside. All of my problems and bad characteristics were changing. I hadn't been patient at all, but now I had peace. I could tell He was working in me. It was as if God had punched me in both eyes Himself to say, "Okay, you've heard enough. Open your eyes and listen to me!"

There I was at work, talking out loud with God. Finally, I said, "Okay, I see now!" I had a bad headache because of my beating. I couldn't ask my employer for painkillers because I couldn't speak Greek. So I said, "God, I leave my headache with you." By the end of the day, my headache was gone.

I had committed a lot of sin in my life. I had problems because of my sin. The devil would point to my sin and say, "That's you!" I couldn't stand that.

But after I believed in Jesus, anytime the devil wanted to show how sinful I am, I could laugh at him and say, "I know, but Jesus paid the price for me, and you can't do anything!" From the time I believed in Jesus, the devil has tried to make me sin more than ever. It has been difficult because there are more opportunities than ever to sin, but now I have the strength to stand in Him.

One day I was looking for a place to stay, but I didn't have any money for rent. I talked to some friends who said they had found a place where I might be allowed to stay and pay later. I was on my way to the appointment to discuss this when I passed Nader in the street. Nader said, "We hear that you need a house. We talked and decided to give you a bed in the Nest apartment. You can move in tomorrow."

So I called my friend and said, "Don't worry, my problem is solved." My friend was shocked because it had only been two minutes since we last talked.

What does the future hold for me? I love traveling, and I always thought I would make a good traveling businessman. Now, I want to travel for God, to go anywhere he wants me to go, to be His missionary.





"L" was baptized on June 9th at the local church he attends. He has already started telling other refugees about Jesus. He believes God has called him to a life of service for Him.